Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
19 December 2015 at 06:50 #49516
@puroandson We sing this every year at least once. (Carol night tomorrow, yay! Wine, food, and song!)
@whisht That album is great accompaniment to a late evening glass of wine. It’s part of my “Christmas mellow” mix! 🙂
19 December 2015 at 06:47 #49515@winston Frankly one of the things I like about DW is that very few of my favourite characters die. Hear, hear! I have no objection to the sadness of goodbyes, but it is nice when characters can have some part of a happy ending, even if the Doctor has to lose them.
19 December 2015 at 06:32 #49514A couple of days ago, I had noted a few comments that I wanted to remember.
@tardigrade freed from the expectation of what it could have been, I was free to appreciate it better for what it was. This is really to the point, I think. Any time there is a big episode, as here when we have the wrap-up to a series’ worth of arcs, we have a vision in our minds even if we don’t realize it. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of that, even when what we get instead is terrific. The thinking behind this sentence is the polar opposite of the ARSE response, where nothing is any good that isn’t what we imagined.
@mudlark The truth about the hybrid was, I think, far less important than the fact that the prophecy had seriously worried the Time Lords. I agree. You also said: That being the case, it would appear that the hybrid was not a hybrid in the normal sense, but the synergistic convergence of two beings of similar temperament and complementary character, one Time Lord, one human. I also like @winston’s Bonnie and Clyde comparison. I also see the Hybrid as the Doctor become Clara-obsessed, Clara-addicted. She gets in your mind and stays there. This allows the Hybrid arc to tie in with the Clara’s death arc, which half-human Doctor or Ashildr-Me would not do.
@puroandson Clara no longer the apprentice -I think many ppl called it; the idea that Clara was the apprentice to her Doctor. Adventures notwithstanding. I remember some discussion after the first two-parter as to who exactly was the “apprentice” to the Doctor’s magician. I believe the question, if there was one, has now been answered with certainty.
And to this: stop slapping my head puro I can write LOL ocassionally, I can only reply, “LOL”.
17 December 2015 at 15:49 #49475@puroandson
I am well behind on this thread. I will have to go and get my iPad to listen to everything that people have been busy with as my laptop no longer likes video content (it gets very hot and randomly shuts down), but I prefer to be on my laptop to post, as I find it trickier on the i devices. But Mr. Arbutus sent me today’s Google Doodle and I thought instantly of PuroMom. 🙂
https://www.google.ca/?doodle=18611475&hl=en&source=sh/x/do&gws_rd=ssl&nord=1
17 December 2015 at 07:53 #49469@puroandson Puro Solo posted a lengthy and articulate discussion of the Doctor’s motivations re Clara and the hybrid, and I especially liked this: I presume the Doctor is now released from his increasingly heavy duty of care. This is significant. Therefore Missy has no power over him and other species who want the Doctor will not ‘read’ his memories and locate his “thing of greatest weakness.” And I absolutely loved your comparison to Rochester. Wow. That’s a great comparison, of the Doctor’s feelings for Clara that are so dangerous to the universe, to Rochester’s obsessive, unhealthy, unrighteous love for Jane. They both forget for a time that there are limitations on what is allowed, even for love.
@tardigrade @ichabod I wonder if part of the Doctor’s problem with Clara was also that he had come to feel that he needed her… to hand him cue cards, to care so that he didn’t have to, to help him be the Doctor. She saved him so many times and ways, that he somehow felt he couldn’t manage without her. And perhaps what the neural block has done has been to remove that dependence. This dependence was the real issue, not his “duty of care”, which frankly is never something he seemed to care much about before, and felt more like an excuse than a truth. Freed from it, he can properly be the Doctor again.
@ichabod It would be an interesting thought experiment to re-imagine all of the stories of Series 7.2, 8, and 9 as if they didn’t have Clara in them, but a nameless Companion who doesn’t have Clara’s history. I’d bet that we could re-engineer most of those stories to make some sort of sense (although not the satisfying emotional drama that we were given, obviously). But something like those re-imagined stories is presumably what the Doctor remembers. And this, @puroandson, I really like: I think he’ll recall the lessons but not the teacher.
I have many more thoughts about hybrids and so on, but it will have to wait for tomorrow as it is long past my bedtime now!
17 December 2015 at 07:43 #49467Wow, you guys have been hard at it. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Confession Disc. Clara Faces the Raven due to a Conspiracy of Timelords. There has been much eloquence and many interesting ideas since last week. Several things that made me laugh (Satan’s fungus, @pedant?) I have just spent several hours following @countscarlioni’s dictum to not post until I’ve caught up. I even took notes so I could remember what I wanted to say. Now, where to begin?
I think I will start with the script vs. film vs. viewer discussion. I had a relatively brief career as a playwright, during which I wrote a few imperfect, bizarre plays and produced them for the local Fringe. It was a blast. One thing that I vividly remember is the read-through, which was the moment when the characters ceased to be the people I had created and became something completely new. Actual humans other than myself reading those lines made such a difference and I always found that hugely exciting. I don’t recall ever correcting an actor’s interpretation of the lines in any serious way, because it all seemed perfectly legit to me. Just not always what I had imagined, not my head-canon. 🙂 Now, while I would imagine that Stephen Moffat would have been quicker than I was to assert his view of the story (with good reason), I think his respect for the actors is such that their take on the characters would definitely leave a mark.
The problem with having presented the Doctor in the past as the “man with the plan”, as in “I knew it all along and was ready for you”, the Doctor lies, etc., is that people are then tempted to apply that kind of thinking even when the creators didn’t intend it. So people choose to dismiss things that were said and done because the Doctor was lying, acting, or in some way tricking someone.
On a related note, I was once taken to task by a music history prof for my interpretation of a Schubert lied, which was based on the singing on a particular recording. She disputed my interpretation, and when I supported it with musical ideas from the recording I had used, she dismissed my argument with the statement that the singer was wrong and I should be careful which recordings I used. I have to say that we agreed to disagree. My view was that if the singer could make that interpretation convincing, then why should he (or I) have to defer to the views of scholars on the intentions of a poet dead for 170 years? Which is admittedly different from a contemporary writer explaining his own work by saying, “No, I actually meant something else.” Moffat, in particular, clearly has no problem with his audience re-writing the stories to their own satisfaction, otherwise as people have commented, he wouldn’t leave things so open-ended!
@ichabod I can only imagine that the writers who really “let their characters take over” the writing process, don’t do much critical editing afterward? That would usually be the time to put those characters firmly back in their places. 🙂
9 December 2015 at 17:16 #49163@morpho I’m loving the names we’re calling Rassilon in here. First he was an old bastard, now he’s a douche. Don’t hold back, anyone. 🙂
9 December 2015 at 17:13 #49162@swordwhale A 350 is more like it. 🙂 I live in the middle (almost literally) of the city, and some people insist on driving these big Fords around and parking them in parking spaces where they don’t fit, and so on. I can never understand why this is, as the weekend warriors that live around here wouldn’t actually need such a big truck, we’re pretty far from the farm!
I loved the diner menu, an pyrohy-style omelette sounds cool. Is that like egg in a dumpling? Potatoes are definitely a vegetable in our house. Lots of vitamin c and potassium in a potato! In Vancouver, I grew up calling fries “chips”, English style, but that has changed now, except for “fish and chips” which is still not “fish and fries”. 🙂 My husband was in San Antonio recently on business, and he brought back some local cheesy dipping sauce for our son, who loves very spicy foods (we all love good Mexican and its hard to find here). My son said it “tasted like America”. 🙂
Sorry, back on topic. I think the diner-TARDIS must have only just gotten stuck. They would have had no reason to make it look like a diner when picking up the Doctor’s TARDIS in London, so they must have done that when they landed it in Nevada to wait for the Doctor. I’m trying not to wonder about the logic of why they would have chosen to drop him off in Nevada in the first place, rather than just taking him to where the TARDIS already was. Unless they thought it was safer for him that way, I suppose.
9 December 2015 at 17:08 #49158@mudlark Many years ago, I knew a man who had an undergraduate degree in archaeology. This man was so excited when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out that we had to line up on opening night to see it (I can remember standing outside for about an hour). His view was along the lines of “Finally, some cred for archaeologists!”
@Morpho Not that it matters much. It will matter if the showrunner decides it does! 🙂 I think the loophole is in the context and manner in which he said it: as I recall, it was said off the cuff to someone he didn’t know, at a time when he was trying to distract someone in some way. So some people allow that it could have been one of the Doctor’s typically quirky distracting remarks. Not necessarily truth.
You’re right of course that Rassilon didn’t know the Doctor would choose the billions of years option. That wasn’t really central to my point, which was more that Rassilon wouldn’t object to seeing the Doctor tortured a bit. He must have guessed at least that the Doctor wouldn’t give up easily!
@bluesqueakpip It was definitely Ken Bones doing the voice-over. Cool, I didn’t know this.
9 December 2015 at 05:23 #49126Based on this trailer and the “next time” teaser, I am really looking forward to this. I wasn’t initially delighted with the news of River Song’s return because I loved her goodbye with the Doctor and didn’t want to see it undermined. But it seems from the tiny bit here that she doesn’t actually know who the Doctor is, which could be interesting, a reversal of the first adventure with Ten. And I like the look of the dynamic between her and the current incarnation.
9 December 2015 at 05:20 #49124I too have been thinking about Rassilon. He comes across very differently in Hell Bent than when last we saw him. Like @bluesqueakpip, I have always assumed that both the Master and Rassilon were flung back to Gallifrey, and as we now have a regenerated Missy as well, it’s reasonable to think that it might have happened then. The whole High Council could have regenerated, for all we know; or the Master and Rassilon could have caused each other to regenerate in some sort of battle.
We know that Rassilon led/bullied the High Council into following his plan at that time. The Doctor foiled the plan, sending them hurtling back to a doomed, timelocked planet. We know that the military was no part of this plan, and that it was the General who knew about, and agreed to, the Doctor’s plan to turn Gallifrey into cup-a-soup. I have sometimes wondered what Rassilon’s view of this plan was, after the fact; his own plan involved conquering the universe, while the Doctor and the general agreed that Gallifrey should, basically, hide. This would not be a Rassilon-style plan; however, his own plan had just failed, rather spectacularly, and although he has obviously held on to power until now, it must have been an uneasy situation.
We don’t know exactly when the planet emerged from the pocket universe to go and hide at the end of time (at least, I don’t think we do). But I think it must have been after the events of Time of the Doctor. Perhaps Clara’s argument that the Doctor didn’t need to say his secret name, only that he is the Doctor, was somehow all the help they needed. Perhaps it was his regeneration that somehow helped Gallifrey back into our universe? It’s hard to explain otherwise why Rassilon would have granted the Doctor any extra lives when he clearly hates him (with good reason, from his point of view). Or was that regeneration cycle gifted without Rassilon’s permission? Perhaps it was the General communicating through the crack at Trenzalore?
In any case, regeneration, the humiliating failure of his plans, and a long time spent locked away and then hiding at the end of time, all seem to have brought him down a notch or two. He essentially humbles himself to come to the Doctor, only to have the Doctor tell him to get out of town. The soldiers refuse to shoot the hero of the Time War, and then the Doctor is able to “send for reinforcements”, suggesting that pretty high level people are taking his side. In The Last of the Time Lords, even the rest of the High Council was afraid of him.
I’m rambling, but it’s certainly easy to see why Rassilon might have decided to torture the Doctor for billions of years, given the opportunity. He wanted information and didn’t mind going about getting it in an especially ugly fashion.
9 December 2015 at 05:08 #49123Goodness, people have been busy around here!
@ichabod This: I wish the Doctor had wiped the Confession Dial and sent that with the old bastard. gave me a good laugh. And then, later on, you wrote: TMA, Doctor: When do I *not* see you? If you guys are right, that question has been answered: ever again. And I wanted to cry, because really, that is so sad.
@puroandson Ah, the sound of a hybrid arguing with itself… or is it the sound of one hand clapping? @Son: Oh well, there’s next year as mum always said whenever I was not happy with my Christmas presents. You do make me laugh. Both of you. Personally, I feel like Christmas came early! And also: a steam of consciousness? Is that like a marijuana sauna? (Sorry, that’s probably the pinot noir talking!) When I was a grad student, one of my jobs was to grade music history term papers for grammar and writing. Some were so bad that there was no way to tell them how wrong they were without just rewriting sentences for them and saying “It should go this way”. Some of the worst writing came from the English-speaking students, while the papers written by the foreign students were usually pretty correct.
@Morpho I’m not convinced that Night of the Doctor legitimized anything except the existence of the Eighth Doctor and his BF companions. His companions from the novels definitely weren’t mentioned. Those of us who don’t like the half-human Doctor idea have generally assumed that he was making it up in the movie (rather like Eleven saying that he can regenerate hundreds of times in the Sarah Jane Adventures). So as far as I can see, it’s not canon until Moffat or some future showrunner decides to specifically make it so. He has definitely done it for transgendered Time Lords, simply by showing it unequivocally in two cases now.
@whisht @puroandson I think the neural “block” rather than “wipe” explains it perfectly.
@bluesqueakpip I agree with your take on Clara as Doctor and Ashildr as companion. Ashildr asked “Where are we going?” and Clara put the TARDIS into gear. 🙂
Also: He’s connecting the ‘something I’m not getting’ feeling he has in the diner with the ‘something is missing in my memory’ feeling he’s been having. So he talks about the memories he can no longer remember and plays the tune he associates with that feeling. But it’s a feeling, not logical recognition. An association with the story, and with the emotional feeling of the music. Something he can’t quite ‘get’. Ever.
This makes sense to me, and beautifully put.
8 December 2015 at 03:58 #49045Not that I would ever have the cojones to take sides in a debate between that formidable pair, @bluesqueakpip and @pedant, but this: the title of the first episode in Series 9 is ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ and then in the final episode of Series 9 we see Clara flying off in a Type 40 TARDIS (with dodgy chameleon circuit), on the run from the Time Lords, with a companion is really clever.
@Morpho Moffat made that judgement two years ago. In what way? Can you elaborate?
8 December 2015 at 03:52 #49044@puroandson It is a point that Clara has in fact done quite a lot of dying already! 🙂
I liked that line of Ohila’s when she asked the Doctor if he was being cruel, or cowardly. That whole conversation was good. I think Ohila is growing into a peripheral character who can have some moral authority over the Doctor, which is a rare thing. Other than companions, I’m not sure we’ve seen anyone hold that power over him. And he came out when she called!
Puro, if Son Of is expressing strong views in a bold manner, clearly he’s been reading this Forum and paying attention! 🙂 )
I wonder what it’s like to open your door and see snow? I’d say that depends on what you were planning on doing when you went to the door. 🙂 My mom, in Calgary, swears it drops a bunch every time she has plans to go out to lunch!
8 December 2015 at 03:31 #49043Well, I’ve had my second viewing and really, that rocked. It just did.
Watching the opening scenes with the Doctor and Clara in the diner, it occurred to me how well both actors do stillness. It’s an expressive thing for them, and can contain a wealth of emotion. This was true at the end as well, in the soft, quiet moments when Clara was essentially bidding the Doctor farewell. Throughout all the diner scenes, the Doctor had a gentleness about him that hasn’t usually been a characteristic of this incarnation. She asks him if he is from Glasgow, and he replies, apparently without irony, “Space Glasgow!” The lovely and prescient line, “Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.” His wistful reply to her suggestion that the stories might appear in songs- “That would be nice” and the long look she gave him before disappearing into her TARDIS… really lovely.
The scenes in the Gallifreyan desert reminded me strongly of the opening sections of the film Paris, Texas, with the evocative desert cinematography and the long silence of the main character. The Doctor, at one with the common folk, reminded me of Eleven on Trenzalore. Did anyone notice that the Doctor, on being ordered to “lay down your weapons”, dropped his spoon to the table? 🙂
I have lots of thoughts about Rassilon the Redeemer, Rassilon the Resurrected, which I will keep for a separate post, but I did love the camera shot of Rassilon surrounded by the thrown-down weapons of the soldiers, and facing them in a line with the Doctor at its centre. There were twelve of them.
The Doctor eliciting truth from the general about the hybrid seemed itself a demonstration of his hybrid nature; it reminded me of his own tone way back when he chastised Journey Blue for demanding rather than asking, and also of teacher Clara’s question, “Is this really what we’ve learned?”
Looking at the Doctor’s face as he pointed the gun at the general, I could only think, “Well, we finally got our dark Doctor.” We never really saw the War Doctor at work, only as he was at the very end of his long journey, but I’m sure that he would have had all the hardness and anger that we saw in Twelve at this moment. It was interesting to me that during their brief exchange, the general, on hearing the Doctor barking out the question, “Regeneration?”, seemed more resigned than anything. He replied with equal brevity, “Tenth.” And they wished each other luck before the Doctor shot him. Very interesting dynamic.
There were so many good dialogues throughout: the Doctor with Clara, with Ohila, and with Me, beautifully, beautifully written and realized- “She died… it was sad. And it was beautiful. And it is over.”
I noticed that Ohila says, when Clara asks how long the Doctor was in the confession dial, “We think four and a half billion years,” strongly suggesting that the time inside the dial was indeed subjective.
I thought the ending was absolute perfection, as the Doctor sees the diner dematerialize around him, and his TARDIS standing there in the desert, with Clara’s face surrounded in flowers and the gentle music of Clara’s theme filling the air. The Doctor enters, backlit, and the Clara music fades as the TARDIS starts to power up, and the transitions into the Doctor’s theme, which continues as he finds Clara’s message and follows her last instruction. And Clara’s painting disintegrates as the TARDIS dematerializes. I don’t think these last few moments could have been any better!
7 December 2015 at 21:24 #49013@mudlark @ichabod I think that the Doctor, by the very end, has realized that the woman in the diner was Clara. I don’t think that he remembers her, emotionally, any more than he had all along, but he has deduced, in his analytical way, that she fits the Clara-shaped hole in his memories. The painting on the TARDIS would have sealed the deal, I think. Perhaps there is something in the back of his subconscious mind prompting him to put on the “doctory” velvet coat that Clara loved, without him realizing it. I like that idea.
It’s even possible that the Doctor, in telling his story, remembered the feelings he had about Clara, as something heard in a story, without understanding them intuitively or feeling them anymore. A dear friend of mine recently suffered a breakdown, prompted by a proliferation of painful events in her life, and spent some time on a psych ward. While there, she firmly believed that she was the victim of a huge conspiracy to keep her incarcerated as a terrorist threat, and that the patients and staff were all actors, the facility designed to torment her in various ways. She was convinced of this. Now, having come out the other side, as it were, she can remember believing it, and even how frightening it was. But she cannot understand how she could have believed it, why she behaved in this irrational way. The Doctor’s memories of Clara could be a bit like that, like the memory of a psychosis that has been treated and is now better.
I don’t think that Gallifrey has experienced 4 billion years. I think that it has somehow been moved along the time continuum, in much the same way that the Doctor has previously travelled to the end of time in the TARDIS, and is now hidden there. Post Time War, but not that far post. 🙂
@mudlark I too had the thought that the TARDIS might somehow have chosen the diner disguise itself, out of some sort of knowledge of the Doctor. I hadn’t thought of the Doctor’s TARDIS communicating that knowledge, but it’s a great idea!
7 December 2015 at 21:18 #49011@pedant Right, I had forgotten that line. I should get a chance to rewatch later today and it will all become more fixed in my mind. But in any case, it’s still not complicated, which was my point in that post. People (in other places) seem to find it remarkably difficult to follow, which it has sometimes been, but I really didn’t think that most of this one was!
That said, there have been some good points raised here about the timeline at the very end, when the TARDIS was moved, why the café, etc. I’ll be thinking about those while watching.
@juniperfish You made a fabulous post on the G talking about companions and Moffat’s approach to time. I wish you’d repost that here because it was really well said.
@tardigrade It occurred to me that if he’s being less than completely honest, it could be that he’s faking memory loss. After all, Clara’s told him that she “reversed the polarity” on the neural block – let’s be honest – that means she put the batteries in backwards. In my experience that means a gadget just doesn’t work 🙂. Spoilsport! 🙂
@bluesqueakpip Your ongoing posts have been lovely. I fully agree with your comedy/tragedy interpretation of events, and Clara’s “regeneration” into a human Time Lord. I wonder whether knowing that she has, finally, faced the Raven, and her fate is clear to her, she will enjoy her final travels with Me with more inner serenity than she has been able to feel until now.
7 December 2015 at 20:05 #49002@tardisblue In my own writing at least, dangling participles are not a thing up with which I will put. 🙂 Although I am something of a grammar geek, I do try to be more chatty than not on the forums, so as not to come off as though my nose is too high in the air. But there are some fabulous writers hanging around here, and they make me feel that I need to keep on my toes!
7 December 2015 at 19:53 #49001Oh dear. I’ve never seen such a place for perfectly nice people putting one foot wrong and then feeling that they have to go away forever. Have you all gone Canadian?
I have no idea what was said to cause offense and don’t wish to know, but everyone should be entitled to second chances, do-overs, and so on, and I hope that @supernumerary will come back and join us again!
7 December 2015 at 05:23 #48937@tardigrade I like the idea that the TARDIS prefers to look like a diner and so just sticks that way. Why not? We know the Doctor’s TARDIS has some firm views, and possibly prefers to look like a blue box. 🙂
7 December 2015 at 04:01 #48921@tardigrade Actually, I think in some ways that it is Clara who is now more “adult” than the Doctor. It wasn’t Clara that threatened all of time and space etc. etc. to save her own life. That was the Doctor. Clara has grown up, she is ready for Time Lordish responsibilities now.
Nice bonkers theory on the life of the universe!
@purandson For the record, my view on the “half-human” Doctor is that unless and until we are directly told in story that that is the case, I will never for an instant believe it! 🙂 (I don’t think I’m ARSE-ish enough to keep it out of my head canon in direct contradiction of the show, although you never know!)
Isn’t it wonderful when once in awhile students are taught critical thinking? A few years back, I was terrifically pleased that young Arbutus had been taught a list of parameters for different levels of writing that allowed him to make the judgement that the Harry Potter books were “fun, but not great writing”. Since this was my view, I quite naturally thought it was a brilliant judgement. 🙂
7 December 2015 at 03:03 #48913@Morpho Ohila also calls the Doctor “boy”. Might we suspect she’s actually Gallifreyan? Perhaps a relative or teacher? This moment jumped out at me as well. I liked it. It hinted at a relationship that predates the Time War. Certainly the Doctor seems to have a relationship of some trust with Ohila at least, if not the rest of the Sisterhood.
@puroandson But why don’t others on other Forums get that? I know, the questions people ask. “How can he remember she existed if she was completely wiped from his memory?” Well, obviously, she wasn’t completely wiped from his memory. Where did it say she was? I know it was suggested that she might be, but it clearly didn’t happen.
So, I believe that ultimately he had become too close to his Clara and his duty of care had been taken so seriously that it could have damaged him and yet in the end, despite his care, Clara died anyway. That is so sad and so absolutely true in life. No matter what we do, we cannot always keep the people we love. Sometimes they die, sometimes they ring us 415 times (like the Dr rang Clara in the Zygon Invasion) and sometimes they forget us. Like a dementia patient who forgets his own wife. Yes, exactly. This is something that we humans understand but the Doctor seems to need to learn it over and over.
(By the way, Son of Puro, is school almost done for you? I seem to remember from past conversations with Puro that you get a long break in December. Right now Arbutus Jr. has two more weeks until his two-week Christmas break and if he could time-travel it rather than taking the long way around, he would do it in a heartbeat!)
@bluesqueakpip Brilliant post, especially this: It’s a fixed point because, without that death, Clara can’t become the human equivalent of a Time Lord. In the end, tragedies deal with critical failure; Doctor Who can’t be about that!
7 December 2015 at 00:10 #48885@midnyt Not sure that Clara’s ending was meant as “leaving it open for her to come back”, more as something that Moffat saw as a reasonably positive and convincing end to Clara’s character arc. As you didn’t like the character then it might not matter as much to you, but for someone who did like Clara, it was really a very uplifting finish for her. Because she really has become unfit for normal life, hasn’t she? But killing her in the way she died was pretty harsh (although admittedly moving). This way, it’s like she gets a reward for all that she has been through, as opposed to going through a lot of awful and then dying horribly.
@gothamcelt I know you didn’t mean this, but you have reminded me that much of Capaldi’s first episode took place in a space ship disguised as a restaurant. 🙂
6 December 2015 at 22:07 #48870@miapatrick The love is gone with the memory, though the reasons for love might remain with the information. She tried twice, in Face the Raven and Hell Bent, to persuade him that she didn’t want him to tear up the universe for her. But this is the only way he could be stopped. Oh, nicely put.
@mudlark @pedant @everybody else who guessed something right! We have now reached that point in the series that is known as “payoff time”. If you guessed something right, you get to brag. And you should, because most of us by now will not remember who guessed what and who got what right. So brag on, my clever friends. Pan galactic gargle blasters in the pub for all of you. 🙂 And one for me because I have managed to get through three pages of intelligent commentary over the course of the morning, and it is now after two and I guess I can have a drink if I want one. Plus the tea is cold.
6 December 2015 at 21:33 #48867@avaris BBC can really do a Paternoster Gang and Clara Who Spinoff. It will be quite (a-hem) interesting character relation between Vastra, Jenny, Clara and Ashildr. This will be just very weird. But I bet every episode will pass the Bechdel Test for sure. Throw in River Song! How anyone can say that Moffat doesn’t write strong female characters is beyond me.
@starla Ohila said that she was there because she had heard that the Doctor had come home. I think she feels some sense of responsibility for the Doctor. And her “Face me, boy” line was very interesting, I thought.
I agree about the BBC approved spoilers, mainly because I prefer to know as little as possible going in. It’s hard enough avoiding the random spoilers in the media, without the “official” ones showing up everywhere.
@miapatrick @tardigrade The iTunes subtitles have mistakes fairly regularly, so they are obviously not getting them from the source. I usually catch them, if not the first time around, then the second. I saw the same “death” for “tenth” mistake, but didn’t catch it on my one viewing so far. That one was a pretty critical one, I must say! 🙂
@mirime If I were going to guess, I’d say that Moffat was poking a bit with the half-human reference. That point was possibly the most universally loathed by fandom in the whole of the TV Movie. So I personally wouldn’t expect Moffat to seriously address it. But hey. You never know.
Tardis stuck as a diner – seems very Douglas Adams. But then every time a perception filter is mentioned or other ways of hiding things in plain sight, I automatically think “Somebody Else’s Problem field.” Ha. Yes. 🙂
@mudlark Great post. I too found the portrait of Clara disintegrating off the TARDIS at the end moving and appropriate. I also thought the whole set of scenes in the Gallifreyan desert was very evocative, and a nice parallel to the American desert where Clara listens to his story in the diner. I’m looking forward to getting a second look at the whole thing.
6 December 2015 at 20:22 #48861@jimthefish But opening with Skaro and ending with Gallifrey and with more than a few serious Who highpoints in between, that was, in my view, one of the most accomplished series of Who, either BG or AG. Oh, I definitely agree with this. I loved Series 8 but this was better. At the moment, I can’t think of a misstep, and the whole thing felt both concise and spacious, due to two-part stories throughout. Possibly the best-constructed series arc yet.
@rorysmith Yes, I thought for a minute that Orson was waiting outside the door, at the end of the universe. And then I saw who it was and thought, Of course, Me, I’d actually forgotten about her!
@jphamlore Au contraire, we may have found out something astounding about why the Doctor no longer uses his original name on Gallifrey. But the key is “may have found out”. Hints and speculation for sure, but nothing solid. Things that can be revisited later on, if desired. Early on I feared that I was about to be given more specifics than I wanted. But I didn’t view any of this as game-changing.
@true-space-wars-lover @puroandson The thing about a prophecy is that unless it’s pretty specific, you might never know for sure whether it has been fulfilled, and there will always be room for disagreement. Maybe the Doctor/Clara has fulfilled the hybrid prophecy (although it never did stand in the ruins of Gallifrey, possibly because they outsmarted fate in the guise of Missy?). But maybe not. There is no way to know for sure, unless another hybrid shows up later on. I am fine with this, myself.
6 December 2015 at 20:15 #48860@supernumerary @tardigrade
You both make some good points. The fact is that those who feel strongly that Clara should have died will of course not be happy with this outcome, and fair enough. I could have lived with her death because it was well done, and appropriate in all the ways we have discussed. I’m not unhappy with this outcome, however, because my main feeling was that it should not be a “no strings attached” revival. We have now seen that the Doctor’s apparent calm in the face of her death came from his apparent belief that he would still be able to cheat it, to “fix it” as he always had before. But between them, he and Me showed him that this was wrong. In the end, he realized that he needed her more than she needed him, and he made the choice to let her go the only way that would really work, by removing her from his memory (not the other way around, as he presumably now realizes that he had no right to make that choice for Donna).
@supernumerary Props for this phrase: rather than regenerating into a tear gland like Smith in Angels of Manhattan. 🙂
I’m still not sure that the Doctor originally ran from Gallifrey because of the hybrid prophecy, because he seems to have returned to Gallifrey thinking that the prophecy referred to Me.
I agree that the shooting was definitely out of character. I think that was supposed to be the point, that the Doctor’s relationship with Clara has become unhealthy, wrong, for him.
Regarding Gallifrey, it hasn’t actually returned. True, it has emerged from the pocket universe, but I thought that was made clear as long ago as Listen. But they have hidden it at the end of the universe. Almost no one would be able to find their way there, given the need for time travel to do so. So they are still safe from reigniting the Time War. I assume that Moffat was leaving the explanation as to how and when they emerged from the pocket universe for another story at another time.
6 December 2015 at 19:59 #48859@pedant Congratulations! What drink can I get you?
Re HHttG radio play: I have a set of cassettes like that as well! Sadly, I no longer have a cassette deck on which to play them.
I also thought that Coleman was fabulous in this. In addition to the scene you mention, I loved the spot where she realized what the Doctor had put himself through to bring her back to life, her horror that he would go through that for reasons that were so completely wrong (as we now know they were).
I agree that the exiled Rassilon has loads of potential as an enemy, and a change from Missy. I’d love to learn a bit more about the “resurrection” of Rassilon, as I have always assumed that they brought him back to help them win the Time War, but I don’t remember if that was ever stated. But I think Moffat has left some useful threads dangling here.
You said this: The Doctor found his way home and found the meaning of the old adage: You can’t go home again. But your friends will still give you soup. Nice.
6 December 2015 at 18:43 #48845I forgot to say that I liked that the Doctor didn’t altogether forget Clara and her importance to him, but he forgot enough of the emotional connection that he is essentially free of her. This was nicely done. I liked him at the end, making his new sonic screwdriver and facing the future. Being a doctor. 🙂
6 December 2015 at 18:32 #48843Okay. I was not expecting that in any way. I wasn’t sure at first that I was liking the direction it was going in, but it surprised me and I’m pretty happy with it. I know I will have lots more thoughts once I have had time to digest it, but randomly:
In the end, Moffat managed to take us back to Gallifrey without really revealing anything new about the Doctor’s origins.
That was a nice poke at the Time Lord gender change deniers!
Ohila’s character is going from strength to strength, I think.
The Doctor really did live through billions of years. But not for the reasons that we thought.
Missy brought Clara and the Doctor together to create chaos, but they outfoxed her in the end.
Frozen Clara and Immortal Me, adventuring together in a shiny new TARDIS!
4 December 2015 at 16:42 #48634@tardigrade He might have considered writing “keep spade” instead of “bird” one time though , since the point of that spade would be pretty useful against the wall compared to his fist Yes, that would have been practical!
Interesting thought about Missy as we know she definitely “sent” Clara to the Doctor. And even thought the Doctor is on his own here, and Clara is most definitely dead except in the confines of his Mind Tardis, and we only see her face or hear her voice for one brief moment, I would say that this episode was surprisingly Clara-centric. The Doctor in mourning. Clara, as @puroandson says, saving the Doctor yet again. Lady Me doesn’t really figure here at all, even though he is in the Dial because of her actions; ditto Gallifrey. This episode is, I think, all about Clara.
Interesting that we have touched again upon memory in this episode. Ashildr/Lady Me apparently can’t remember huge swaths of her experiences, as her brain just isn’t built for that much data. The Doctor clearly has a different mechanism for dealing with the memories of a long life, by layering them, in a sense, perhaps? So that they can be mined when needed, and sometimes a catastrophic event will turn things upside down and thrust something to the surface (Who frowned me this face?). And here, he is definitely able to remember, at a certain point, things which physically he shouldn’t be able to, having been “reset”. Or else, as @tardigrade says, things just aren’t as they seem. This would support the “subjective experience” theory.
4 December 2015 at 04:58 #48616@puroandson Ah. What is similar? What is opposite? How far do you travel around the circle before you end up where you started? And what’s time to a Time Lord? 🙂 Insufficient wine with dinner, apparently.
I agree, as I think I have said on the other thread, that what the Doctor experience inside the confession dial was probably folded up into a fairly brief spot of “objective” time. I like that term of @ichabod‘s because it distinguishes between time of the physical and time of the mind, but allows that both are equally real. Even in the physical universe, the concept of time is much less straightforward than the bit of it that we use. I was watching a video on black holes with the other Arbutuses last week and the discussion of time and space was seriously mind-blowing.
Hm, I see we are becoming a philosopher’s pub. Tea is no longer enough. I shall have to call for a whisky.
4 December 2015 at 04:41 #48615There have been a lot of interesting ideas about the virtual vs. physical reality of events in the episode and it’s all wonderful. I’m inclined to lean toward the “subjective” rather than “objective” interpretation, although not strongly in support of any one description of exactly how/why that works. Lots of people have had very creative thoughts. Frankly, this is why I don’t quite understand the viewers who demand every little thing be explained. It’s so easy and fun to come up with our own mechanisms for how things might have worked!
@mirime He couldn’t lie when he was in the confession dial, but he can now he’s out. Oh, that’s a good point. It also happens to support my view that the Doctor is referring to himself, but is not telling the truth, so even better! 🙂 But it’s a good answer to the question of why the Doctor would suddenly be willing to talk now, but not to avoid billions of years of torture.
@puroandson Thank you for the incredibly evocative description of your hospital experience. It serves as a vivid reminder of the mind and how hugely perceptions of time and space can be altered. I hope it wasn’t too disturbing to live through it all again, it sounds as though it were bad enough once!
A few people have mentioned the issue of what the Doctor remembers (@tardigrade, @puroandson, @ichabod, others as well). Here are some thoughts I have had on that. When he discovers the wall, he “sonics” it to figure out what it is. He peruses it and then suddenly remembers the message “bird”. Then, inside his mind palace, he says this: “That’s when I remember! Always then! It was exactly there.” There is an interesting mixture of tenses here, implying both the past and the ongoing present. He also says “I can’t keep doing this” and “I can’t always do this.” And finally, “I can remember it all… Every time.” He comes to this moment and can then remember past the reset, as it were, because he clearly remembers it happening every time, seven thousand years worth of times. So when he finally breaks through the wall, he does it remembering all the other billions of times he tried and failed.
He appears to equate these aeons of torment with Clara’s loss. He says in anguish, “And you’ll still be gone.” Clara’s response is, “You are not the only one who ever lost someone… Get over it. Do it. Break free.” This really seems to equate breaking free from the trap of the confession dial with breaking free from his grief. Whether this means that what he is going through is literally a penance, or whether there is more of a metaphoric connection being made, who nose? But these lines strongly support @ichabod‘s thinking that much of the purpose behind “Heaven Sent” is to move the Doctor past Clara’s loss, to free him up for the future.
By the way, if there has been any discussion of the title of this episode, then I have missed it. What do we think the title represents (other than Clara herself, possibly)?
4 December 2015 at 02:04 #48610@pedant Well, I was trying to be discreet. I wore the sonic shades and no visible question marks.
4 December 2015 at 01:17 #48603@lisa @mersey @bluesqueakpip @pedant
Personally, I view the Zygon two-parter as at least a bit allegorical. For one thing, the process was simplified as each side was represented by the will of a single individual. So the Doctor’s speech could move Kate to lay aside her weapon. In reality, reaching agreement is much more complex because multiple people on each side must be brought on board.
Obviously, in our world, we would not simply forgive the mastermind of the Paris attacks because he was sorry; but in our world, that mastermind is not likely to become “sorry”. In that conflict, as @pedant says, we have not yet come so far. But the beginnings of resolution were found in South Africa through forgiveness (truth and reconciliation), and in northern Ireland at the negotiating table, so I believe that the theme is legitimate. Where the Zygon story departs from reality, I think, is that it telescopes a process that in our world would have to see the passage of many more years of conflict, sadly, much more death and destruction, before the combatants reach the point that they did in the story. What’s truly sad is that so many people on both sides don’t seem able to learn from the past, and we have to relive this again and again.
1 December 2015 at 17:52 #484381 December 2015 at 17:50 #48437@mudlark I am not comfortable with the idea of penance to expiate the guilt he feels for his failure to protect Clara, especially such a protracted penance. I think, rather, that he feels persistence and ultimate survival are what he owes her, who has so often prompted him to live up to his name and be his better self.
I think in a way that both are right. Rather than consciously torturing himself to expiate his guilt, perhaps he is trying to do as Clara-in-his-mind has instructed, to get off his arse and win. But she has also told him to “get over it”. And I do think that @ichabod is correct that one of the ultimate results of his experience will be a cleansing of his guilt over Clara, so that he can remember and honour her in the way that she deserves. A soul-cleansing, in fact.
Having watched again the last scene where the Doctor emerged onto Gallifrey, I am now inclined to think of the dial as more of a portal than a container. Although we did see the miniature of the castle before it closed up, but that could have been an image of the pocket universe, rather than a real place, couldn’t it? However, I also like your idea of confession dial as hard drive, and the teleporter holding his body in some kind of limbo while his mind went through its experiences there. But I wonder what would have happened to that body had he failed? Would it have been dispersed somehow, or dumped out dead and burnt onto the sands of Gallifrey?
1 December 2015 at 17:47 #48436@puroandson My son also loves astronomy. He is currently taking Physics 12 and there is very little astrophysics there, mostly a lot of trigonometry to do with force and motion, which of course you need to know, but like Son of Puro, he yearns for the “good stuff”. Have you seen the any of the BBC series with Brian Cox? We’ve watched Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe, both are very good. He even helps me to understand it and I’m pretty poor at physics! But it’s still deep enough for the other Arbutuses, who are much much better at it, to learn and enjoy.
Yes, I fully agree with @ichabod’s ideas about what the Doctor is accomplishing over those billions of years. I also agree with Son that it’s the Doctor’s subjective experience that counts. I am personally convinced that in “our” universe, very little time passed while he was inside the confession dial. But he will always remember living through those billions of years of continuous torture and death, and his future actions will be coloured by them. He has done his penance, as @ichabod says, but will also remember them vividly in his interactions with the Time Lords (and anyone else who bears responsibility for them).
Son of Puro, I thought that that five or so minutes showing us the “first second of eternity” was absolutely the most heart-wrenching Doctor Who that has ever been– more than the death of Clara, more than the last moments of Eleven, far more than Ten’s farewell to Rose. (I won’t even mention the departure of Ten, which I felt was badly mishandled in its attempt to manipulate our emotions; I was really glad that Ten got a “do-over” at the end of Day of the Doctor!) This, on the other hand, was so heartbreaking that I didn’t even really cry (and I’m a terribly watering pot normally!). Rather than weepy, I was choked and aghast. It was horrible.
1 December 2015 at 07:11 #48401@ichabod I agree absolutely about the Doctor’s motivations. I was thinking here of what the Time Lords were trying to achieve. But I have come round from thinking that they were trying to help him through, somehow, or there was some motive other than the obvious, and have now reverted back to the obvious– that they were trying to get information from him about the Hybrid. And I am assuming that the Time Lords were responsible here; it’s still possible, of course, that that is wrong! 🙂
@countscarlioni I like your thoughts about Ashildr. It would be nice in many ways if the true solution weren’t the apparently obvious one.
1 December 2015 at 07:08 #48400@ozitenor Nice post! I like your point about the first 7,000 years of the Doctor’s journey. Of course, he wouldn’t have to do everything exactly the same way each time, as long he made it back to the teleport room and completed the cycle there. That solves a lot of dilemmas. It is also borne out by the fact that the story he tells the Veil changes from time to time; so we know that he is not repeating events in exactly the same way.
I had the same thought about the grave (but not until my second viewing!): that he must have needed to bury the message to avoid it being reset.
I am quite sure that he saw the word “home” and thought of the TARDIS. When I saw it the first time, I thought immediately of Gallifrey. And that was right in fact; but not to the Doctor. “Home” to the Doctor is definitely the TARDIS!
Happy ozi-tenoring!
1 December 2015 at 05:53 #48394Well, I have had my second viewing and I honestly think that I could watch this over and over. There were a few things that stood out this time around.
The idea of the cameras, showing what the Veil sees, was very interesting (and a deliberate connection to Sleep No More?). The Doctor said the cameras were there to scare him, but maybe they were also there to help? He was able to use them to figure out how long he had before the Veil caught up with him again. Others have probably mentioned it, but I thought that the line, “Finally run out of corridor… Now there’s a life summed up,” was really great. It could have come across as just a bit too clever, but in Capaldi’s wry delivery it felt gently self-deprecating.
The Doctor’s arrested look when he spots the painting, followed by the little smile as he looks at Clara’s face, made me want to weep. The whole scene when we first see his “mind palace” in the TARDIS, and he explains that he survives by bragging to Clara, felt incredible moving. He needs someone to talk to. I remembered Ten, at the beginning of Series 4, talking to his companion in the TARDIS, only to suddenly realize that there was no one else there. That was a moment that I found similarly poignant.
He speaks of the legend of the hybrid, and says he knows it’s real, where and what it is, and that he is afraid– of what is he afraid? If he is the hybrid, is he afraid of what he will do? Or is he lying, and not the hybrid at all?
I was hit more strongly this time by the moment when he remembers everything: when he sees the wall, remembers the bird message, and understands what he has to do. “I can’t keep doing this… I can remember it all, every time… and you’ll still be gone.” The agony of those lines, the anger of his rebellion, his rejection of his task– this is the true moment of torture, self inflicted, when he can actually remember the worst part of the journey, and has to face it again. And Clara says, “You’re not the only person to have lost someone. Get over it.” What a moment. It was too painful even for tears.
And then, the Doctor leaves his mind palace and faces up to the wall. It was agonizing to watch him hitting that wall, the pain at each contact, the feverish light in his eyes between times. I said before that I thought that the Time Lords, knowing his cleverness and determination, must have known that he would find a way to survive. And yet, how can they have believed that he would torture himself so horribly, simply to survive with his secret intact? It’s beyond imagining.
Next week is going to be a barn burner, but I’m not it will top this for me. I have a lot of thoughts about the music, but I think yet another viewing will be required for me to sort them out. I can say for sure, that I’m envious of @puroandson getting a look at those scores!
30 November 2015 at 20:01 #48331@bluesqueakpip 🙂 I logged on specifically to leave you this message and found that you had already been here on the subject before me.
I just wanted to tell you how much I admire the approach you have taken to the Capaldi era. You have said before that you were taking awhile to warm up to Capaldi’s Doctor, and now we learn that in fact, you have not been able to like him at all. But for most of two series, you have continued to contribute meaningful and objective commentary that has added so much value to the conversations on the Forum. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is in the fight against ARSE! I wish that some commenters in the other place could see how civilized people can do this. 🙂
My hope is that when we eventually move to the Doctor’s next incarnation, you are able to get as much joy from that person’s interpretation as I have gotten from Capaldi’s. You deserve it!
30 November 2015 at 05:27 #48289@ichabod I like your thinking here. It is of course necessary that the Doctor move on from Clara. We cannot have another situation as we had with Ten, endlessly in mourning for his lost companion, no one else ever measuring up. But we’ve been presented a Companion with a very special relationship to the Doctor, and it would be wrong for him to just “get over it”, especially given the manner of her departure. Your interpretation of this episode allows him to work through his grief in a manner suited to all she meant to him and the way he lost her (“I grieved for her for billions of years!”). And then, he can move on.
@janetteb That is very elegant. I suspect that when we have seen the complete series and can revisit it, we will find that it has been very tightly woven indeed.
30 November 2015 at 03:15 #48284@puroandson Oh, no, it was fine. The “shock” was merely due to suddenly being presented with the reality of our boy cuddling on the sofa with a pretty girl whilst watching Casablanca, and showing no sign of wanting to be anywhere other than as close to her as possible. She’s a lovely girl, he met her in the choir and she is a dancer (of all things given that he doesn’t so much as wiggle his butt when he sings!). She doesn’t follow any sport at all other than watching hockey with her dad, and is much more extroverted than my son, who isn’t shy but tends to view life with caution. It’s all very lovely, but I suddenly felt so old!
Not billions of years old, however. I think the idea of the resets must have been somehow connected to the idea of getting as many “confessions” out of him as possible, more than one go-round might allow for? I really do have to watch again. I agree that the Time Lords must have allowed for the possibility that the Doctor would figure a way out. They know how clever he is, and how stubborn.
I also agree that the Doctor would very much say, “I’ll tell you what I choose, when I choose, you are definitely not the boss of me!” 🙂
30 November 2015 at 01:43 #48277@puroandson We don’t use handkerchiefs, but like @nerys, we do use cloth napkins, which I do iron. I taught Arbutus Jr. the washer and dryer a couple of years ago, and how to fold a dress shirt, but we haven’t tackled the ironing board yet. I guess that will be next. I’m still in shock over the girlfriend he brought to our house for dinner last night! The Rubicon has been crossed. 🙂
@cheesemaster5000 Welcome! Being pretty fond of cheese, I like your user name. 🙂 I think that the crystal wall was not really part of the dial itself, but something like a portal. Not sure about the teleporter room, but I have to watch the episode again. Perhaps the boy had been set to keep watch on the confession dial (if indeed the confession dial was already present on Gallifrey before the Doctor emerged). I think we will find out more about what he said to the boy next week! 🙂
29 November 2015 at 23:53 #48258@nerys @puroandson I also thought it was the same coat. How it got there the first time, however, is a bit puzzling. Maybe a second viewing will help me there.
@miapatrick A lot of people in t’other place claim an inconsistency that he took the long way and then confessed. I think in fact that is very doctor- assuming what he said when he got out of the dial was the truth- stubborn and bloody minded and only ever so slightly showing off. He didn’t confess in the end, he made his way there and told them something. Well said indeed! 🙂
@whisht I like your thinking that the Doctor might have created the puzzle for himself.
Like @countscarlioni, I also felt that it was something new in this episode to see the Capaldi Doctor properly, truly, deathly afraid. And it was lovely to see the Doctor back in full deductive mode, proposing hypotheses and working things out. I liked that the blackboard was part of his mind palace!
29 November 2015 at 23:37 #48253@puroandson Good morning to you, Puro. It’s well down the afternoon here, of course, and I’ve spent much of it reading all the comments on this board!
What lovely news all round! I think it’s fantastic that this young woman, who made a choice of repertoire that was probably a little “outside the box” for some, was so well rewarded with success. And how forward-thinking of your dean. I thought that last night’s soundtrack was probably the best I’ve ever heard on DW, which is saying a lot. So suitable that for a unique episode, they had a unique soundtrack.
I don’t think that he meant Mayor Me, if only because he has been resolute in calling her Ashildr up until now, it would feel very contrived to use that as a misdirect now, in my view. That being said, I don’t know if the Doctor is the hybrid or if he was making it up? We could have the “Doctor with Clara in his head” as a hybrid, I suppose. But whatever it proves to mean next week, I expect that I for one will be surprised by it!
I must say, as others already have, how much fun it has been to hear some of Son of Ilion’s thoughts! What a personable and intelligent young man, direct, thoughtful, and confident. But I see you in a new light now– ironing socks? Personally, I iron as little as possible, with the exception of men’s dress shirts and the occasional napkin. 🙂
29 November 2015 at 23:18 #48251Well, that reading took awhile! 🙂 So much to comment on and think about. First of all, some wonderfully eloquent writing about the heights and depths to which we were taken with this episode. Succinctly summed up by @phaseshift: I wish more TV could dare to be this different. Yes, indeed. And yes, not only arc-heavy but mythology-heavy as well, and by that I mean, DW mythology as well as all the wonderful references people have been pointing out. (I especially liked the woodcut, @whisht, and @countscarlioni’s image of the Doctor climbing out of Purgatory!) Personally, I don’t think this is a problem; if every single episode has to be aimed at the casual viewer, then the show will get boring in a hurry!
All the discussion of the Confession Dial has been interesting. The basic question, as stated by @thebrainofmoffat: Did we witness the creation of the confession dial (which would logically explain why Me took it from the Doctor — to avoid having the dial within the dial)? Or was the Doctor transported into the dial at the end of Raven and the dial was transported to Gallifrey? I had thought the second, but the first is intriguing, especially in light of @juniperfish and @mudlark’s comments. Also, I liked @avaris’s thought that Clara being “inside” the confession dial would explain why it gave her a shock when she touched it in The Magician’s Apprentice.
As far as the crystal wall is concerned, I had assumed that it was not part of the construct, but the way out of the confession dial, so therefore didn’t reset itself when the rest of the rooms did. But @juniperfish’s idea: I thought that the glass wall is actually the timelock (the veil) between the bubble universe Gallifrey is in and “this” universe is also cool.
I definitely agree that, whether because the dial is a bubble universe or because the events actually take place in the Doctor’s mind, billions of years have not actually passed.
29 November 2015 at 20:29 #48235Oh, yes.
I see there are a quite overwhelming number of comments to read through already. So I’ll just briefly say now that I loved this. I don’t know whether it will be universally loved or not, as it was so very different to anything we usually get. But I loved the slow build of tension and mystery, the little moments of sadness (“Which, let’s be honest, is what killed you”), of bravado (“Must be Christmas”), of honesty (his stark description of the process of loss, that no matter what you do and get through, the loved one is still dead). And of course, the last eight minutes or so of payoff, the more horrific echo of Ashildr’s passage down through the centuries, the dawning realization of the Doctor’s purpose, his triumph, and then, the sight of Gallifrey. Possibly the most event-packed eight minutes in the history of the show.
I thought that the soundtrack was as unique within the show as the episode itself. There was one particular moment backdropped by a callout to Beethoven that I found especially moving, and also the lovely music that accompanied the Doctor’s endless journey through time. I loved creation of the TARDIS as the safe place in his mind, where he could speak to Clara, his teacher; it was moving that throughout, he only saw her from behind, until the end, when he needed that final push toward discovery and salvation.
I will of course read everyone’s comments and watch it again, but at the moment, I can’t think of one single complaint. Overwhelming.
28 November 2015 at 05:53 #48008@puroandson Oh, son of Ilion, don’t let my boy hear you disrespecting Fifa 16. 🙂 He’s pretty attached. He does say that it is designed for a PS4 so it doesn’t show to best advantage on his old PS3, but he very sensibly doesn’t feel the need to upgrade as it’s pretty much the only game he plays anymore.
People take iPads to church???? Wow. I am not a churchgoing person myself, but I have to think that bringing along your personal entertainment would be missing the point! Many members of my family are practising Christians, but they were not when I was growing up, so I wasn’t raised that way myself. Now I’m married to a confirmed atheist, so that simplifies things a lot. Although having been musicians, we have both played and sung in church many times. As I know Puro would agree, some incredible music has been composed for church over the centuries.
I think the issue of “handedness” is fascinating, particularly when it comes to music and sport. Many right handed hockey players shoot left, which I find odd as it would never occur to me to do that (assuming I played hockey which I most definitely do not!). And some right-handed footballers prefer to kick with their left foot.
@pedant Not really a western, I guess, but I love The Quiet Man. I will also admit to a fondness for The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance. True Grit is of course fabulous. And I haven’t seen Josey Wales in ever so long, but I remember enjoying it once upon a time.
-
AuthorPosts
